I spent four days at a Breema intensive at BreitenbushHotsprings. The first night, these two occurred in the middle ground between sleep and waking, closer to active imagination although with very little or no sense of directing or prompting anything.

Radical impartiality

There is a deeper taste of the radical impartiality, the radical absence of preference, of Ground (space, awareness, Big Mind, Spirit). Anything is OK: an earth worm, a stone, any human being, any personality, any body, and so on. There is no preference. Anything goes. There is also the question: where I am not willing to go? What am I not willing to allow? Where am I more partial than space? Or rather, where is there still an identification with the preferences of my human self? Where do I take them as absolute?

Milarepa's needle

Any aspect of this human self that is sometimes, or often, taken as I is collected in the form of black pebbles and stones of various sizes. They look like river rocks. The parts of this human self that is not taken as I are seen as transparent rocks, form with no substance. Those taken as I are solid, with apparent substance. An old woman takes them and washes them. She turns into Milarepa, who takes out a needle and pierce each solid stone, one by one. They become transparent as they are pierced.

About radical impartiality

The radical impartiality of space (Ground, awareness, Spirit, Big Mind) is very real. It does allow any form, any appearance, that we know and many more. It has no preference between Jesus and Hitler, a rock or a flower, a desert planet or a living planet. Each of these and much more is all OK.

My human self naturally has preferences, and that is the beauty of this human self, and its job. And as long as there is a sense of I placed on this human self, there is also an identification with these preferences. They appear as absolute. As real. Nonnegotiable.

When center of gravity shifts into pure awareness, there is a taste of this radical impartiality. There is the seeing of awareness as naturally allowing each and all of these forms. It is all OK. It all arises. They all come and go on their own. And they leave no trace. Awareness is not harmed by any of them. It is not impacted by any of them. Space allows anything to come and go, and its nature as space is always the same. Awareness allows anything to come and go, and its nature as awareness is always the same.

When the belief in I falls away, Ground awakens to its own nature - including its radical impartiality. Anything arising within/from this human self is OK. Any or no self is OK. It is all what is happening, what is unfolding. (At the same time, our human self does reorganize and realign within this new context. It does more and more clearly and skillfully express what is seen as effortless compassion and wisdom. But that is another story.)

About Milarepa's needle

This one is pretty literal as well. Milarepa uses his needle to pierce the rocks and reveal them as form and emptiness. They used to be taken as solid, as I, identified with. After they are pierced, through insight, they are revealed as insubstantial, as space itself, as Ground. And various forms of inquiry can function as this needle.